The present invention relates to an information retrieval system and, more particularly, to an information retrieval system equipped with a randomly-accessible memory medium such as a video disk or a video tape recorder.
Recently, electronic devices called electronic dictionaries have become available on the market. These electronic dictionaries require efficient and rapid retrieval of word information stored in a ROM. An example of such electronic dictionaries is disclosed in Levy U.S. Pat. No. 4,158,236, June 12, 1979, "ELECTRONIC DICTIONARY AND LANGUAGE INTERPRETER". The disclosure of this patent is incorporated herein by reference.
However, the capacity of a ROM is rather small.
The present invention is concerned with the use of a video storage medium, such as a video disk or a video tape recorder, as part of an improved information retrieval system. A video storage medium allows large quantities of information to be stored and rapidly accessed. The information may be stored in the form of video data, in which case the information can be displayed on a video monitor.
When, the video monitor displays a video picture containing a plurality of entry words, conventionally, it is rather troublesome for the operator to instantly find a specific entry word, which is selected, from the plurality of entry words.
Therefore, it is desired to improve word information retrieval pictures to be displayed on the video monitor.